Modern inventory systems, such as those in mail order warehouses, supply chain distribution centers, airport luggage systems, and custom-order manufacturing facilities, face significant challenges in responding to requests for inventory items. As inventory systems grow, the challenges of simultaneously completing a large number of packing, storing, and other inventory-related tasks become non-trivial. In inventory systems tasked with responding to large numbers of diverse inventory requests, inefficient utilization of system resources, including space, equipment, and manpower, can result in lower throughput, unacceptably long response times, an ever-increasing backlog of unfinished tasks, and, in general, poor system performance.
In many scenarios, increased or improved levels of automation may improve operation of inventory systems. For example, many warehouses exist with shelving units or other inventory holders that can be moved from place to place within the warehouse by unmanned, robotic, mobile drive units. Although such arrangements may provide many advantages, they may give rise to other challenges. For example, in some situations, movement of inventory holders may result in movement of inventory items carried by the inventory holders. Such movement may result in inventory items being damaged or misplaced, such as from items colliding within the inventory holders and/or items falling out of the inventory holder during movement by the mobile drive unit.
Additionally, in many cases, operators tasked with stowing or loading inventory items into inventory holders may fail to recognize pockets of available space in an inventory holder. For example, items may be arranged in the inventory holder such that available space is blocked from the operator's view, and/or an operator may fail to recognize that an item is sufficiently compressible to allow other items to be stowed in the same space. Failure to recognize available space may cause an operator to transition to other inventory holders that have more easily identifiable space available instead of effectively utilizing the capacity of each inventory holder.
Thus, in many situations, reducing failures to recognize available space and/or reducing damage to inventory items that may occur when moving inventory holders can be beneficial ways to improve efficiency, increase reliability, and/or lower costs of inventory system operations.